CounterCurrent: Week of 11/20/23
The holiday season is upon us, CounterCurrent readers! It’s now Thanksgiving week—it’s hard to believe the year is almost over—and we hope that you are finding time to rest, and enjoying time with your loved ones amidst the season’s busyness. As you reflect on the people and the things you’re grateful for this past year, we also want to reflect on a few things we are grateful for, as well as bring attention to a few ongoing issues.
1. Webinar Events and More
NAS has hosted over seventy webinar events since November of last year! We were thrilled to host special webinars celebrating big wins and new reports, as well continuing—and starting—new webinar series. Our six webinar series addressed important areas of higher ed reform, such as restoring the sciences, combatting racial preferences in college admissions, confronting social justice ideologies, and more.
Our Right Ideas webinar series has also been turned into a podcast for listeners who are interested in learning more about various thinkers who have been critical to understanding the history of the intellectual right. You can access the podcast here.
We are eternally grateful to our hosts, panelists, and regular listeners, without whom these events wouldn’t be possible.
2. Six New Reports
Since this time last year, six reports have been published by NAS scholars. Areas of research have covered a wide array of topics, including DEI in STEM, the origins of the “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” movement against Israel in higher education, a study of the University of Austin’s DEI policies, the rise of DEI cluster hiring in academia, and more. Each report was carefully crafted through intensive research and hours of hard work. If you’re interested in reading through more of these wonderful reports, go to this page to view more.
We express our sincere gratitude for the invaluable support you have provided, which has played a crucial role in helping us achieve our milestones over the past year. But we would be remiss if we didn’t mention a few ongoing issues that we will be keeping you apprised of over the coming weeks …
First, the California Association of Scholars has submitted a letter to the President of the University of California regarding their handling of anti-Semitic demonstrations on campus. Their blindness toward radical politics on campus has finally come to a head with recent horrific events in Israel and the backlash is mounting.
Second, John D. Sailer's recent Wall Street Journal article sheds light on what he refers to as Ohio State University's "DEI Factory." In an extensive investigation, Sailer acquired 800 pages of "Diversity Faculty Recruitment Reports" through public records requests, revealing the university's explicit diversity-focused hiring practices. You can find more details in this article.
Finally, lawsuits have been filed against Bakersfield College and Kern Community College District because of their strict DEI enforcement; and just last week, a judge granted an injunction, calling the DEI rule enforcement to be “contrary to the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech in the academic arena.”
As you prepare to gather with loved ones this holiday season, know that I am grateful for all you regular CounterCurrent readers! To NAS members new and old, and friends of the cause, thank you for your support and readership as we fight to reform academia.
Have a very happy Thanksgiving from all of us at the National Association of Scholars!
Until next week.
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, written by the NAS Staff. To subscribe, update your email preferences here.
Photo by Adobe Stock
